Late to this blog but have to say I love the article and all the comments, and definitely agree with knitting being the new Yoga. I’m technically a basic knitter but have recently been knitting afghan squares which I have found really therapeutic. At the same time I have also been having fun knitting sheep which has caused great hilarity to friends and family. One of my crafting friends loaned me a book called “Keep Calm and Cast On” which has on every page a delightful quote or hint related to knitting. Highly recommended.

Spin knitting! Much better than watching TV while on a stationary bike! And I laughed when I read about your packing yarn … I just returned from a trip where I brought a second (little) suitcase for (1) yarn & related implements, and (2) gifts for the grandchildren! 🙂

Oh, so true! Thank you all for the laugh!
While packing for a recent trip, I was commenting that my clothes wouldn’t fit in my suitcase. My son suggested I look at what I packed. Yes, I had to take yarn out to get my clothes in. And, I knew I was going to be visiting yarn shops at my destination!
What’s really been fun, though, is knitting while on my stationary bike. Yes – SpinKnitting!

I knit and crochet. Have been known to pick up a project and work on it while the computer boots up or while waiting for a response from my friend on MSN. I also sit in the back pew of the church we go to and knit or crochet from back there. I intend to crochet or knit scarves for next year’s Operation Christmas Child boxes. I won’t be able to get one for each box, but I’ll try to get as many as I can.
Also, a lady veterinarian I know noticed a pair of fingerless mitts I was wearing and asked where I got them. When I said I made them, she immediately gave me some money to buy yarn to make her some. This year she asked me about a month ago for 20 more pairs of those mitts so she can give them for Christmas gifts.
So, much of that post applies to me.

I knit at almost all my son’s sports events. One time I forgot to bring a cable needle, so I went to the snack shop to look for a straw. It did the trick. I still don’t think it is an addiction. I call it a passionate artistic expression.

I bought a big bag of bamboo skewers way back when, then one day I’m sizing up some assorted needles and realize they’re actually size 4! That came in very handy when I needed an extra set for a baby sweater!

Perhaps it is wrong to call our knitting/crocheting art as an addiction. True addictions don’t bring people happiness, right? And knitting/crocheting makes us happy! So perhaps we should find another word?! 🙂

I was knitting and walking while watching my grandchildren play putt-putt golf recently and a group of women stopped and chatted with me saying they were amazed anyone could do that. They had figured that I was either in desperate need to finish the project or really crazy about knitting. I told them that I had OCD and knitting helped me stay calm. Hee hee. I have minor OCD but not bad enough to need to knit all the time – guess it must be an addiction. ;o]

This was the BEST! I was laughing as I have experienced almost ALL of the scenarios. My favorites are the knitting while walking and giving directions to the driver AFTER I finish my row 🙂
Thanks for making me laugh!!!

This I understand! I knew a group of angora spinners (they spun right off their rabbits on their lap) who agreed to, as a group, learn to spin blind in case they ever lost their sight. So at their group meetings, they tied bandanas around their eyes and taught themselves how to do that!

Hilarious! This just about sums it up but I will add another: A friend and i were talking in earnest the other day about how we both have fears of becoming disabled by illness or injury in such a way that we would be unable to knit any longer. This thought pops into my head at least a few times a day, lol.

My music stand was actually purchased for the original intended use, to hold my music, and since I bought it at a music store it cost an arm and a leg. Something else that would work would be a typing stand/copy holder, and they’re easier to find.

Actually, I use a music stand for holding patterns. I lay the book in my lap and use my TV remote to hold it open. My music stand’s page holders wouldn’t handle the size of a book – it’s very lightweight.

I am glad you enjoyed it. (I giggled as I wrote it!) My sweetie says I leave a trail of fiber, threads, etc. wherever I go, so he can always tell which rooms I’ve been in. And maybe your friends are like waiters – you know, the folks who wait until your mouth is full and then come by and ask, “How is everything?” 🙂

You just might be right! I hadn’t thought of that. I was in that wave of medically defiant women 🙂 who were determined to take back theh labor/childbirth process, no meds, stay peaceful, etc. I REALLY thought it would be SO easy that I could knit between contnractions! (I couldn’t!)

Found this blog way of Facebook status update….I don’t know about knitting between contractions…but it would seem *more* likely to K2, P2 between contractions during subsequent births than the first one. Everyone gets so nervous with baby no. 1, generally speaking. Mother-to-be might tempted to strangle you with yarn during delivery of no. 1 if any knitting occurred within her sight.

I enjoyed this post as well as the comments following. I loved the ‘…and you reach for it instead of your sweetie.’ . It reminded me of a joke someone sent me about a woman thinking her spouse was caressing her but he was only trying to locate the remote.
I find them all to be admirable traits of an enthusiast.
Everyone in the room is engaging in conversation. I know a reply is required of me when the room is silent (why must a conversation start AFTER I’ve picked up my yarn work???). I look up and they’re looking at me…patiently waiting for me to finish a row. My family seems to understand. 🙂

Oh yes, I get the same lecture sometimes, but most people I talk to can see the work that goes into it, and they understand the time factor. I also tend to underpay myself a little, but that’s why the orders keep coming in, I think. Sure, I charge more than WalMart, but from me, they’re getting something custom-made to their specifics, and they understand that. I have had an unending list of orders since before Thanksgiving last year, and I love it! Keeps the money coming in, and keeps me out of trouble!

Omgosh, yes! Totally me! I have all of my yarn and projects right next to my computer.. my “Momcave” as it were… and if my computer is running slow, or whatever is happening, I always have at least 2-3 projects to pick up and work on!

Red-headed stepchild? You’ve obviously never seen the Japanese Doily books. I own two, and I’m kinda stalking the chick on e-bay that sells them. Honestly, I don’t read Japanese, but the patterns are done in symbols so I can still crochet them. I just don’t know how big they’ll be when done or what size thread and hook they recommend. I just look at the picture and guess – it’s worked out so far!

Several years ago I was in a doctor’s office and knitting away while the nurse questioned family history, prior illnesses, etc. I had to stop while she took my blood pressure and pulse, and when she finished she told me the numbers. I was shocked that my pulse rate was so low and asked the nurse if she was sure it was correct. She told me that my pulse rate was low because of the knitting, and that many medical professionals were calling it, “The New Yoga.”

I don’t wanna get in trouble for advertising something here, but I find it quite interesting that I got an e-mail this morning from one of the sites that I visit to get discount deals. Apparently they’re starting to run low on spelunker-type headlamps and since I’ve ordered from them before…anyway, I just thought it was quite the coincidence.

Hmmm … why so self-deprecating?! I have crochet work that only a FOOL would call the red-headed stepchild of anything!

I can crochet – and have made a pile of doilies – but I don’t crochet as fast as I knit and that drives me bonkers. 🙂 One of my fiber friends is an awesome crocheter and it is neat to see her study a knit pattern and recreate into crochet. I am using one of her designs to crochet a hat for my granddaughter, and it seems like the HAT THAT WILL NEVER END … 🙂

Maybe you’re just friendlier than I … when people ask me how much I charge for a custom order and I tell them the starting price, I then get a little lecture on how they could buy a sweater at Walmart for $9.99. Yes, I’m an addict to… we could start a 12 step program but we don’t want to! 🙂

Hahahaha, oh yes- definitely an addict. I take my crocheting with me everywhere- at work, when I take the bus, when I go to church, or if I take a class anywhere, and last week I also crocheted the leg of an amigurumi bunny while I was at my 6th grader’s Spring Concert. And it’s paid off, because everywhere I go, it starts conversations, and quite frequently results in an order!

Well, according to the dentist I had very strange teeth that required extra work in order to remove all the stuff that required removing. It took 3 visits, an hour each, and I get twitchy when I’m bored, so I knitted. When she wanted to do a 2nd root canal a year later I turned her down and had the tooth pulled. Frankly, I thought you’d be more intrigued by the “knitting at night in the mountains” story, because I was essentially knitting blind (and it was lace).

Very interesting!! I’m a crocheter, the red-headed stepchild of yarn arts. I brought a crochet project to my boyfriend’s apartment and worked on it while we watched TV. He couldn’t have been too offended: he married me.

My house is one big craft room…there are bags of yarn, knitting needle, crochet hooks and pattern books in most every room in the house, and 1 crochet and 1 knit project in my car, never know when i’ll need them. If I’m not knitting or crocheting, I’m on one of the gazillion web sites looking at patterns……thank goodness i only live with my dog and cat!

Nope, no worries! when a fiber person mentions addiction, I immediately think craft/art – nothing else. Learning knitting is a lot easier if you have someone helping you. Many people find YouTube lessons useful. My belief is that those are more useful after you’ve got the basics under your proverbial belt. You could always give an electronic shout-out to meet some experienced knitters for coffee or something. Most of us LOVE to get other people into our coven – I mean group. 🙂

During a root canal? Wow, you are a serious knitter! Maybe you should get a new dentist – one that already knows how to knit so won’t be distracted by your needles? Or were you waving your needles in a threatening manner?! 🙂

Ah hah! Let me share my secret for not getting messed up with numbers. When I am counting in English and someone tries to see if they can make me lose track by saying numbers, random or otherwise, I simply switch to Norwegian. I find I don’t confuse the counting that way: I count in either Norwegian or English but do not mi them up. Of course this doesn’t work well if the person trying to confuse me also speaks Norwegian. 🙂

I find myself counting things that don’t need to be counted…steps in a staircase, telephone poles along the highway when I’m the driver and can’t knit, number of brush strokes when I painted the kitchen, how many strokes of the saw it takes to saw through a board… I mentioned it to my sister who also works in yarns and threads and she admitted to doing the same thing. Hello, my name is Susan and I’m a counter…

I can relate to a lot of things as a crocheter. One day was coming from the doctors and had my bag in the car sit next to me and got stopped by a train, then I grabbed my hook and starting working. y daughter laughed at me when I told her this.

Have you tried learning to knit using both traditional methods: Continental and/or English? Because I crocheted first, with the yarn coming from my left hand, I found the Continental style of knitting easier to learn. But using the English method lets you easily learn by doing one stitch at a time, so that might be easier. If you haven’t already tried this: use large needles and thick smooth yarn so you can easily see each stitch as it’s made. Just keep making stitches, using whatever method works for you — there are about as many ways to accomplish a knit stitch as there are knitters. The end result is what’s important. If it looks good to you, then it IS good. Good luck! (There are so many videos on YouTube that might help you. You can pause the action whenever you need to.)

I can SO relate – I knitted the majority of a baby afghan while I was undergoing a particularly difficult root canal – more than once I had to signal the dentist to pull the tools out of my mouth so I could mumble “Please pay attention to my mouth, not my needles!”. I’ve also had to say similar to a husband who was driving on narrow mountain roads (covered with ice at appx. 70 mph) in the middle of the night – because he kept turning to me and saying, “How can you work on that NOW?” Well, only one of us could drive. And I needed the knitting to keep from clutching the dashboard while screaming, “Slow down, &%^%!@! You’re going to kill us!”

I am a crochetaholic. I crochet walking, grocery shopping, eating meals, watching tv, working on the computer, and I even went to sleep in a recliner and kept crocheting (all wrong, so I had to take it out and do it wide awake. But I sell on ebay, so I have an excuse.

I told my mother recently that I have figured out what Hell would look like… Yarn, patterns, no hooks. Or patterns, hooks, no yarn. We decided that we would figure it out. A crocheter/knitter can find anything to make due in a pinch.

This is so true! When preparing for a flight, I had to make sure that I had a complete set of crochet hooks made of plastic. When my OB was getting me ready to be admitted for the delivery of my youngest son, I delayed going to the hospital across the street to drive 20 miles to my home to get my yarn, hooks and a pattern that I just had to work on while I was waiting for the medication to take effect. But my favorite story is of the time I made a mistake on a christening gown nearly 15 rounds back in a pineapple pattern. My darling husband asked after I ripped those rounds out, ‘Honey, were you bored?’. I promptly called my mother to tell her what her moron of a son in law said, and her response was, ‘So you need help hiding a body?’…

My husband is a construction worker and I travel with him quite a bit. When I was packing to go from Texas to North Carolina, I set aside a suitcase for patterns and another for yarn. Again, my darling husband says, ‘They don’t sell yarn in North Carolina?’. While working in North Carolina over the Christmas holiday, he told several of his co-workers, as soon as she gets here she is going to crochet some wool socks and my feet won’t know there is snow on the ground.

I take my crochet to the dentist, doctor, and anywhere that my husband is the one driving. I have helped little ones crochet small bracelets and dish cloths while in waiting rooms. It makes them smile and when they leave they have a good thing from a place where they are usually anxious or afraid. I have to say that I learned to crochet by watching my Nannie (grandmother) and my mother. We buy patterns in doubles or triples so that everyone has the same pattern so that we can work on projects together.

SO YES I AND MOST OF THE WOMEN IN MY FAMILY ARE ADDICTS! WE FREELY ADMIT THIS AND HOPE THAT THOSE AROUND US CAN JUST ACCEPT IT AND GO ON.

This was so funny!! I had to laugh at this one “Preparing for a trip to another continent (or even another city),… you pack two projects and a complete set of needles or hooks “just in case.”, I can’t even go from my craft room to the couch without two projects extra in hand just in case I finish what I am working on first 🙂

Just happened to notice that my post makes me sound as though I “sampled” more of the 60’s than I should have. It may be prudent to point out here that my surplus of dead brain cells is due to raising a child alone during the time of my life when I should be happily crocheting on the front porch…but I digress. What I meant by “seasonal addiction” was that the crochet bug hits me especially hard in the cooler months, whereas my other main addiction, reading, consumes me when spring creeps in. While I always seem to have a book stashed in my purse, warmer weather seems to make me utterly ravenous for ficition. Maybe because I love to read outside. On the subject of knitting…while it’s obvious you must’ve been born with little knitting needles clutched in your baby fists, I have no such knack, though I have tried to learn…AMAZING work, by the way… I always wanted to learn, but it just never came together. Last winter, I was so desperate I bought one of those loom-things. Okay, so it’s cheating, but I thought, maybe this is a start, how hard could it be? I started a scarf for my little girl, and for a while, it was looking nice…then something went not quite right…it wound up looking like a sweater for Cousin It. But I shall not give up!

You gave me a good laugh today! haha Apparently I fall into the “addicted to knitting” category too because if I’m knitting and one of my kids’ wants something, they’ll automatically ask if I need to finish a row first. lol

I love the Signatures. The join is really smooth and the cable is so flexible – and it doesn’t get kinks. It’s really good for magic loop too. And I really like the pointy tips. I wish they’d make a 3mm needle size – I could so use that size

How do you like the Signature needles/? I’ve been an Addi turbo user for years; how do they compare? (I went to SF for a ew days and brought 2 knitting projects and 1 crochet project – in addition to my iPad!

LOLOL! Some of those definitely apply to me, especially the knitting in the car part. I tried to knit while walking the other day, and that worked but my needle was just too pointy (Signature needle) to risk knitting more than the rest of my row. I definitely agree on taking my knitting along. I have a longer trip planned the end of this month and I’m already thinking about what yarn and patterns to take along. And my family already knows that my standard answer is “hold on, I need to finish my row”

This is why I never bring my knitting to bed. L is nice and supportive of my knitting, but I’m not sure how long that would continue if I started snuggling up with it instead of him at the end of the day!

This was great! I kept laughing as I recognized the ones that applied to me 🙂 Alas, in a darkened theater, I hadn’t realized that I dropped a stitch, so there was a fair amount of repair work done afterwards….but did it stop me from future theater knitting attempts? Of course not!

My name is Susan and I’m a knitaholic! I really need a tape recorder that says two things: 1. Can’t talk now I’m counting stitches and 2. Just let me finish this row. It would save TONS of strain on my vocal cords!

I was recently informed I’d make a horrid get-away driver when Mr.Me got in the car after cashing his check and made a joke about robbing the joint and my response was “I just need to finish the last 5 stitches of my row…”

These made me giggle, it’s frightening how many of them apply to me! Case in point, I did knit through a good bit of labour when my daughter was born, in the early stages, when still at home. And I remember thinking in the car on the way to the hospital that I had forgotten my knitting! Of course, at that stage, there was no way I was going to knit another stitch any time soon.